Grace, Luctor
by 3rdAuror
Summary: Before he was Jason Grace, he was The Luctor. Before he was a Hero of Olympus, he was a Centurion. A Praetor. A Friend. Hera took more than some memories of a few stolen kisses and the occasional adventure, she destroyed a legacy. Pre-HoO.


**Disclaimer: Everything (except from A few OCs and Theo) belongs to Rick Riordan.**

**Prologue.**

Electric blue eyes glowed in the pitch blackness of the night, sparks of lightening coursing through his irises as he watched her movements and tried to memorize her fighting style. His legs ached so much they had started shaking, threatening to break from exhaustion. His brain was too fuzzy and disoriented to catch up with her fighting style. It changed, moving fluidly from offence to defence like one would switch from standing to sitting.

On a good day, Jason might have been able to keep up.

Two days of no sleep ,no food, and still no sign of this elusive demigod that the Legion was labouring so hard to find. There was no definete proof a demigod had killed those wolves, only strange jagged markings that Jason thought could've been made by anyone. This search was, in his opinion, an irrelevant quest with the primary motive of making New Roman's feel safe by appearing to be well protected. As expected, there had been a huge ruckus when the news reached the Senate: Five wolves found massacred at each corner of Camp Jupiter. Wolves in Lupa's pack didn't just get massacred, it wasn't that simple.

It couldn't have been one demigod that did all this damage, anyone with half a brain knew that.

But Praetors Simons and Greener... Octavian had poisoned them. Twisted them to do his biding.

New Rome was slowly falling subject to coruption, the same way Rome did before. Jason's home was becoming nothing but soome dump full of selfish idiots who had only their best interests at heart. Octavian was poisoning his city. And of course, there was nothing the son of Jupiter could do about it.

All to keep appearances.

Sometimes he wondered what the point of being the almighty son of Jupiter was. Fame? Privilages? Everyone expected him to do what was right. Eeryone expected Jason to keep the peace. Everyone expected Jason to take dangerous missions on the outskirts of Camp Jupiter without complaining because he was a son of Jupiter. It was his duty to be better than everybody else.

And then there was this girl.

Jason sighed as he sidestepped a particularly swift slash at him. Without as much as catching her breath, she swung her free arm at him, stricking him straight in the nose. Jason stummbled backwards and mumbled a Latin curse he once heard Centurion Beverly mumble in Sword Practice. The girl was too good, too fast and too egile. She was a worthy opponent Jason could easily come to stalemate with, if he was trying.

His instructions were clear, the culprit was to be intercepted and brought in _alive_. In all honesty, there was no way to contain this girl without using deadly force, she was _that _good. At the same time, Jason didn't want to hurt her, she might've not even been the demigod he was searching for.

"You are not trying." Apparently she knew that too, bcause her tone sounded nothing but insulted." You're the one who attacked, but you're too much of a coward to finish it?"

Jason grit his teeth and flipped his javeline into the air, catching the sword it materialised into with ease. "I don't like fighting. I'm more of a chatty guy you see."

"Chatty?" The girl commented as Jason lunged weakly. She rolled her eyes, probably seeing that however much she taunted him, he wouldn't really fight her, just entertain her until his reinforcements showed up. She parried downwards with her knife and kicked him squarely in the chest, forcing him to crash into the tree behind him. Jason raised his sword, but the girl quickly met it with her own blade, twisted it expertly and the sword fell to the side.

"I wonder how chatty you'll be when I cut out your tongue?" She sneered with a glare so intense, Jason immediately regretted holding back. Apparently, girls these days enjoyed a good fight with an expert swordsman.

She got closer, so close Jason could finally see something other than a dark silihoutte. The first thing he noted was her large obsidian eyes that seemed capable of radiating only hatred, her scowl that molded her pretty -no, drop dead beautiful- features into something so intimidating Jason was sure he'd made the wrong choice to piss her off and, well, the golden blade she'd placed to his neck. He wasn't so happy to see that she was actually a girl, that just added insult to his already grave injury.

Wait till Theo heard he'd gotten his ass whooped by some girl.

The girl flipped her long, wavy ebony hair over her shoulder. "You attacked me." She stated bluntly. "Why?"

"Are you complaining? You didn't seem like the person to mid some friendly sparring once in a while." Jason smiled that smile Emily was always telling him could melt anyone's heart. The girl's cold gaze didn't waver, if anything it grew so icy that Jason felt a chill ran down his spin. So much for anyone.

Jason wasn't ready to admit he was scared off her, however frightening she seemed, _the chill probably has something to do with the knife at my neck. _

"I don't mind actually," She said, matter-of-factly as she removed the blade form his throat. Jason wanted to believe she trusted him, but her hold on the knife proved the obvious. If he as much as did something she didn't like, she would skewer him before he could even breath an apology. "However, it does upset me when boys try their hardest not to hurt me. It's a little insulting."Jason smoothed out his light armour -a chest plate, arm guards and shin guards where nothing compared to what Praetors and Centurions wore on a daily- and scanned her carefully. His insticts told him she was dangerous and wouldn't hesitate to kill him. They also told him she was on his side. Her skill was definetly inheritated, there was no doubt about tha, but there was some training there as well. Survival training...

"Lupa, Lupa sent you here didn't she? To Camp Jupiter?" He deduced.

For a fraction of a second she visibly relaxed and turned her dark eyes to his bright ones in questioning. Then she remembered the first lesson Lupa taught every pup: _Trust no one but yourself to surive _and she put up a stoic mask. "You're from Camp-"

If Jason wasn't used to it he might've had a heart attack. The girl was immediately interupted by a hand of pure earth and stone encaseing her in it's grasp.

Theo. Of course it was Theo.

The tall, lanky and, very surprisingly, skinny, Thesseus McMallorae in question walked towards him exactly the way he'd seen him last, clad in a pair of black acid wash jeans and his purple Camp Jupiter shirt, barefoot like he mostly was, and holding an extra large pack of salt and vinegar flavoured chips in one hand. The other hand was outstretched in front of him, his fist clenched in a chocking motion.

"You did not just do that?" Jason deadpanned. The girl was coming round, acting civil before Theo screwed it up in typical Theo fashion: With some sort of jumk food in his hands.

Theo throw a chip into his mouth and shrugged. "Flirting isn't going to get us anywhere bro." It was hard to uderstand him with the heaviness of his accent and the chips stuffed in his mouth, but Jason was sure he just said that.

"I wasn't flirting." He said quickly. He wasn't. He was just being nice. He was twelve for the gods' sakes, was flirting even possible?

Theo didn't look all that convinced. The taller boy scanned the girl in the fist of earth and whisteled. "She's cute dude, you were definetely flirting."

Jason glanced anxiously at the girl, who struggled vigorously. He was beyond glad she couldn't hear Theo's comments because of the way Theo's creation had covered her face. From what he had seen, she was feisty and didn't take those kinds of compliments all too well.

"Octavian will be expecting us." Jason said firmly.

**Really short I know, but it is the Prologue right? I've always wanted to right a post HoO story involving one of the Romans, then BoO came out and I fell in love with Jason and this popped up.**

**Hope you lot liked it, review and tell me what you think. Also, could you please help me point out any spelling, grama and or general mistakes you mightsee in this chapter. I wrote this using DocsToGo and it doesn't have a spell/grammer check, plus I love correction because it improves my writing quality.**


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